Hope
by Jo7
Summary: A newborn baby is brought into the ER, causing an argument and a revelation. Carby.


**Title:** Hope   
**Rating:** PG   
**Summary:** A newborn baby is brought into the ER causing an argument and a revelation. Carby.   
**Author's Note:** This is my entry to the OCOH March fic challenge, which was to write a fic including Carter, Abby and a baby. There had to be an argument, but it had to be worked out by the end. This is my attempt, please let me know what you think of it. :) Any feedback is appreciated, good or bad. :) Thanks for reading! Jo xx 

Abby sat in the lounge, catching up on some reading. She was so behind with the work, all the med student and nursing shifts were finally catching up with her in a very bad way. Even now she wasn't free to study in peace, she was just taking advantage of the relative quiet in the ER and the fact that being best friends with the attending in charge of the shift meant she could skive off a few toe lacs. Of course, the down side of having that best friend was that she kept on coming in and chatting to Abby, under the pretence that she wanted to help her with the studying. However, Susan usually managed to turn it into some sort of gossip session, and over the last forty-five minutes Abby had covered very little work. 

She was still trying to get her head around the complexities of ultrafiltration in the kidneys when she heard the door open once more. "For goodness sake Susan, can I please have a bit of peace and quiet to study?" she exclaimed, finally unable to put up with the constant interruptions. 

"I'm not sure whether I should be offended that you mistake me for a pregnant woman," Sam joked from the doorway, and Abby turned around looking at her apologetically. 

"Sorry, I thought you were Susan coming for another gossip session." 

"Worse I'm afraid. We've got a trauma coming in, ETA five minutes. Abandoned new-born baby, Carter wants you to run it." 

"Wonderful," Abby muttered, closing the textbook and pulling herself to her feet. She followed Sam out to the ambulance bay, and awaited the arrival of the ambulance. 

"You okay to run this one, Abby?" Carter asked as he joined them. She nodded: it wasn't like she had a choice. And since she couldn't study, she may as well do it. The fast paced action of a trauma, and the sense of helping someone out in some small way was, after all, the reason she was doing the studying. 

"New-born female, approximately three hours old," the bombardment of information started as soon as the doors of the ambulance were flung open. "Having respiratory difficulties, pulse ox is only 85. Her pulse is weak and she seems a little anaemic." By now they had reached the trauma room, and everyone was crowding round, attaching machines to the baby. 

"Right, let's get a CBC, lytes and Chem-7, please, and we need some o-neg ready just in case," Abby called out, looking to Carter to confirm this was fine. He nodded his agreement. "And can someone call up to the NICU, we're going to need someone down from there." She looked down at the baby, momentarily composing herself and thinking through in her mind what to do. "We need to bag her," she stated, placing the mask over the baby's face. She looked to the monitor as Sam squeezed the bag rhythmically, seeing no rise in pulse ox. 

"You want to intubate, Abby?" Sam whispered quietly, but Abby shook her head. 

"No, keep bagging. Did someone call up to NICU?" 

"They're completely backed up," Lydia informed her. "Preemie delivery, twenty eight week triplets. They said they'll get someone down ASAP, but they can't promise anything." 

"Well there's a kid's life at risk!" she exclaimed, frustrated. "Right, we need to get some fluids into her. I'll start a line." She grabbed the necessary equipment, and holding the baby's arm firmly she attempted to insert the line. "I can't get a vein," she said, half to herself and half to the others in the room. 

"It's okay," Carter reassured her. "Just give it another go." She nodded, taking a deep calming breath, before inserting the needle into the arm, and sliding the line in expertly. 

"Got it." She smiled to herself, satisfied, whilst Lydia hung up the IV and attached it to the line. 

"Pulse ox has dropped to 83," Sam stated, wiping the smile off Abby's face. 

"Just keep bagging," she instructed. "Can we get some of that o-neg into her too, please. That should sort her anaemia out, hopefully we'll see some improvement." 

As the blood began to run into the baby's veins, Sam continued to look at the monitor. "Her pulse ox is still dropping. We need to do something, and quickly." 

"Give her a minute." 

"Abby," Carter said in a warning tone, intervening with her methods for the first time. "She needs intubating." 

"I'm not intubating a three hour old baby if I don't have to." 

"Do you want me to do it?" he asked. 

"No!" she exclaimed, angrily. "I'm perfectly capable of intubating a baby, but I don't want to. She'll make the best recovery if she doesn't have to go on a vent." 

"Just intubate and let Sam carry on bagging, we'll extubate in a couple of hours and she won't even need a vent." 

"Lydia, can you run that blood a little faster please," she instructed, ignoring him. 

"Abby, she's hypoxic." 

"And she's three hours old. If we can manage without intubating her she'll be better off." 

"You're risking brain damage." 

"She's still semi-conscious. I'm just trying to do what's best for the baby." 

"Lydia, get me a straight blade and a tube, I'm going to intubate her." He held out a hand for the equipment. Lydia glanced awkwardly between the two, before passing it to him and glancing apologetically at Abby. 

"John!" she shouted. "Can you just trust my judgement for once." 

"Can you just let yourself be taught?" he retorted. 

"Pulse ox is beginning to rise," Sam interrupted their bickering, looking shocked. They both turned towards the monitor, Carter looking just as shocked as Sam. Abby couldn't help the satisfied look that came across her face. Suddenly, the baby let out a quiet cry. Gradually her cry got louder and more forceful. 

Abby grinned down at the baby. "You just needed a bit of time to sort yourself out, didn't you baby girl?" she asked, rubbing a finger over the back of the baby's hand. After ensuring she was stabilised and handing out instructions for her care, Abby walked out of the trauma room, with Carter following close behind. 

"Abby, can I have a word please?" he called after her. She nodded, and followed him into the lounge. He faced her, anger evident on his face. "What the hell were you doing in there?" 

"Trying to do what's best for a baby." 

"You put her life at risk. She could have suffered permanent brain damage if you'd let her oxygen levels get much worse." 

"But they didn't. That baby's going to be fine." 

"You didn't know that though!" he shouted. "How could you risk that, when you didn't know what would happen?" 

"Babies are resilient. I didn't want to do anything extreme." 

"I'd hardly call intubation extreme, Abby." 

"You know what?" She stared at him angrily. "You can't take that you got it wrong. You can't take the fact that I knew what to do and you made a big deal in there about me being wrong, and then I was proved right. You're jealous that I, a med student, knew what I was doing better than you. I did work in OB for years, you know. And you know what else? You're not just jealous of that. You're jealous of the fact that I got my life together, all by myself. You hate that however much you tried you couldn't 'fix' me, and yet as soon as you left I sorted myself out. You hate me for not drinking, not smoking, for going back to med school, all on my own. You're jealous of me because I can do things on my own, but you need someone else to keep you happy." 

"Abby..." 

"And even that's part of the problem, because you're not happy. You're jealous that I'm happy, whilst you're with some bitch you don't love, however much you try to fool yourself that you do, trying to play perfect little happy families. You can't believe the life I've got for myself, when you're miserable pretending to be happy. You can't even be happy for me, because all you think about is yourself. All you can think was how much I hurt you by not being there when your Gamma died, but you can't think how much it hurt me to not be there for you. You can only think how much what Eric did at her funeral hurt you, but you can't think what that did to me. The only thing you think is that you need Kem because of what I did to you, you can't think what seeing you with a pregnant girlfriend so quickly did to me. I always thought you were a loving, caring, unselfish person, but you've turned into a selfish, jealous man." She stared at him angrily for a moment, before leaving, slamming the door behind her. 

*** 

Abby smiled down at the tiny baby in her arms, hungrily consuming a bottle of milk. It was hard to believe that a few hours earlier the baby had barely been conscious. It was also hard to believe that anyone would abandon such a little darling. "How could anyone not want you, hey? You're such a beautiful little girl, Hope. No one could not love you. Maybe your Mummy's looking for you, huh? Looking for her beautiful little Hope." 

"Hope?" She jumped at the sound of his voice. She turned round slowly to face him. She was surprised to find that he didn't look angry with her, after what she'd said earlier. 

"You made me jump, I didn't hear you come in." 

"Sorry. So, Hope?" 

"Up in the NICU they give all the babies names, different to their real names. They say it's hard to fight with a name like Lloyd." 

"Hope doesn't sound like a very 'hard' name." 

"I know." She looked down at the baby and grinned. "But it's a cute name. I always liked it." 

"Yeah, I like it. Hello Hope," he tried it out, watching the baby as he sat down next to Abby on the gurney. "You feeding her?" 

"Yeah, the poor girl was screaming away." 

"One of the nurses could have done it." 

"I know, but I wanted to. She's such a sweetie." 

"She is. Do you, erm, mind if I have a go?" he asked nervously. 

"Sure. I guess you need to get into practice for this." 

"I guess I do." He carefully took Hope from Abby's arms, and Hope immediately began to scream. "Well, she's certainly taken a shine to you." He grinned. 

"I guess so." Abby smiled proudly. 

"I'd say you're rather fond of each other," he noted, having managed to tempt Hope back to her bottle. 

"If I just sit and watch her, I can almost believe she's my baby," Abby whispered. They both sat in silence, watching the baby suck hungrily at the teat of the bottle. 

"Me too," he finally added. They both looked up at each other, eyes locking in recognition that they were both thinking the same thing. "I'm sorry for doubting your judgement earlier," he said, breaking the moment. 

"It's fine. You just wanted to do what you thought was best." 

"Yeah, and what I thought was best was wrong. You're going to be such a great doctor, Abby. And a great mother, if Hope's anything to go by." He grinned as he passed the baby back to her. 

"Thank you." She was unsure what else to say. It wasn't like she was ever going to have the chance to be a great mother, but the compliment meant a lot to her. Instead, she decided that she ought to apologise as well. "I'm sorry too. For all that stuff I said in the lounge." 

"It's okay. A lot of it was true, I guess. I'm sorry, I was a pretty lousy boyfriend." 

"No you weren't. You were the best." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised what she'd said. She racked her brain for a quick recovery, but she couldn't think of anything. And he was already grinning. That crooked, embarrassed smile that she loved so much. "We were okay together, weren't we? I mean, we were good. Really good. Just not quite good enough." 

"I guess so." 

"If things had gone a little differently, Hope could be..." she glanced down at the baby and sighed. "Sorry, I shouldn't be saying this stuff to you when you've got a girlfriend and a baby on the way." 

"It's okay, say whatever you want. We were best friends before we screwed everything up, remember? I miss that." 

"Me too." She rested her head against his shoulder, smiling. It felt good, just being close to him, even if it was as a best friend rather than a girlfriend. She'd rather be his best friend than be in a screwed up relationship with him. 

"You know, I often think about what would have happened if things had been different. If I hadn't been so scared at that restaurant, if I'd just put my insecurities behind me and done what my heart was telling me to do." 

"I wonder, too. What would have happened if I hadn't said what I did. It was what I said about people never really changing that changed your mind, wasn't it?" He nodded. "I think we've both proved me wrong. We've changed a lot." 

"For better or worse." Abby laughed loudly at that, causing Hope, who had begun to drift to sleep, to stir. Abby rocked her gently, calming her down. "What's so funny?" 

"For better or worse is part of wedding vows, right? It's kind of ironic." He smiled at that, laughing slightly too. "John, will you promise me something?" 

"Anything." 

"Promise me you won't marry Kem unless you're absolutely sure it's the right thing. Don't marry her out of obligation, or because you want your perfect little family to be complete. Marry her because you love her." 

"I promise I won't marry Kem." 

"I didn't say you can't marry her, I..." 

"I know," he cut her off. "You said marry her because I love her, for no other reason. I would only even consider asking someone to marry me because I love them." He looked at her poignantly. "And I promise you that I won't marry Kem." 

*** 


End file.
